Fighting against my shadow

Sometimes, I feel like I am fighting against my own shadow.  Twisting and turning in a battle against my two selves.  There is the part of me that is fine.  That does okay, that gets along with others.  I would call it my Sunday face.  The face the world sees.  The one that people think they know.

Then there is the shadow me, the me that lives deep inside, the me that no one else can see.  The me that isn't really real, but feels that way.  It is the me that judges myself too harshly, the one who sees all my darkness, the one who can never forgive herself.  The one who struggles and juggles and tries.  The one who fails.  Sometimes if feels as if I forever and losing that battle.  I am forever failing.  And even if it is supposed to be imaginary, it really doesn't feel that way. 

I have decided that we all battle against our own shadows.  We all struggle to become what it is we think we want to be.  We all try our best and, at times, end up failing miserably.  Thank goodness that there is one who doesn't fail.  There is one who takes all those trials of ours and, through grace, makes our brokenness whole once again. 

I have learned that we are all broken in some way or another.  We all struggle to define ourselves.  We all come up short.  It is only as we draw closer to the Savior that we truly find ourselves.  That we start to see the shadow is only a shadow.  It is not real, and it never will be.  Who we are is so much more than that shadow person. 

Like the shadow in Peter Pan, whom Wendy sewed together with a needle and thread, the shadows of our beliefs are absorbed and then sewn together with the Savior's love, until what we have left is so much more than we ever thought was possible.  Our damaged bits and pieces are mended in His expert hands.  We are put back together one thread of love at a time, until we stand before Him whole at last. 

We can't do it.  We never have been able to do it.   But He can.  As we draw closer to Him, He embraces our hearts and changes us, until in the end, there is no more shadow, we become only His.